Commentary: China's foreign trade growth boosts hope for world economy

The latest customs data shows that China's foreign trade has gained steady recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic as the imports and exports both rose remarkably year on year in June.

China's foreign trade has surprised the world and boosted hope for global recovery.

Statistics show that China's imports and exports in June rose by 6.2 percent and 4.3 percent year on year respectively, beating forecast and injecting confidence into the world market.

In the first half of the year, China's foreign trade volume totaled 14.24 trillion yuan (about 2.03 trillion U.S. dollars), down by 3.2 percent from a year ago. However, the range of decline has narrowed by 1.7 percentage points compared with the figure for the first five months this year, thanks to the effective control of the coronavirus disease and government policies to resume production.

The key indicators of China's foreign trade have delivered an optimistic signal to the world that China has gained notable resumption of work and life, and this helps to stabilize the global supply chain as China is a manufacturing giant.

The growth of China's foreign trade is healthy and sustainable, making a great contribution to the world economy.

Firstly, the government has stuck to reform and opening-up, adopting a series of policies to boost imports and exports, including further implementing export tax rebate policy, extending credit scale for foreign trade companies and setting up more comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border E-commerce. These measures have helped enterprises tide over difficulties and will surely have a long-term positive impact on foreign trade in the future.

Secondly, China's industries have largely resumed production, driving up market demand and strongly supporting the growth of imports. In the first half of this year, imports of commodities such as crude oil, coal, iron ore and copper ore increased by 9.9 percent, 12.7 percent, 9.6 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

Thirdly, in the second quarter of this year, most of China's imports and exports with its major trading partners rose, forming a healthy foreign trade structure. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) remained China's largest trading partner with trade volume up 5.6 percent year on year to 2.09 trillion yuan, accounting for 14.7 percent of China's total foreign trade.

Last but not least, exports of epidemic prevention supplies provide strong backing for the global efforts battling the COVID-19 pandemic. The exports of such products grew rapidly with sales of medicines and pharmaceutical products, and medical equipment expanded by 23.6 percent and 46.4 percent, respectively.

Facing all the difficulties and turbulence of the world economy, China's dedication to implementing further opening-up will keep boosting its foreign trade in the future.

In 2020, China's Foreign Investment Law was put into place. The country shortened again the negative list for foreign investment. All the reform policies will help China and the world accelerate recovery amid the gloomy global economy.